I came across a musician who takes an instrument you know, and makes it do things you might not know it can do. He’s Gideon Freudmann, and he plays cello in very unexpected ways.
(see music video at bottom)
He's performing in South Texas this month, and oddly, it's been quite difficult to get here. In fact, he’s been trying to get to Boerne for a long time. Someone there heard him on National Public Radio, and began a correspondence to get him to come here.
“We’ve actually been back-n-forth, exchanging e-mails for over a decade. For one reason or another, it just didn’t work out.”
But now it has and he’s coming to the Cibolo Nature Center for a performance on Saturday, March 21st. He gave me a little background about how he got to where he is now.
"I studied classical cello starting when I was a young child, but somewhere along the way I became enamored by other styles of music.”
So as he listened to the music, he started improvising on his cello.
“I would just try jamming along with Beatles records, Taj Mahal.”
This eventually led to his unusual career as a cellist who doesn't play a lot of classical music. He plays a little, but more often he plays Blues, Jazz and Folk. He needed to describe the kind of music he plays somehow, so he named it something distinctive.
“CelloBop. To my mind anyway, it kind of suggests it’s uptempo and fun.”
I asked “Do you feel like you’re being instrumental--pardon the pun--in helping the cello realizing some of its other personalities?” He answered enthusiastically.
“Absolutely! Yeah. To the extent that I have a mission, it’s to show other people and show the world what an incredible and versatile instrument it is.”
He says he hears this a lot after shows.
“I had no interest in going to hear a cello player, but this was a whole lot more fun than I ever imagined.”
We’ve more on CelloBop here, and more on the event at the Cibolo Nature Center here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xduZ49wRko
